Byesville councilman Richard Chesar and Councilwoman Margo Johnston had expressed interest in such a program for the village.

Johnston later said she received a number of telephone calls from residents and others. The callers all but universally opposed the idea, she said.

The viability of a curbside recycling program is closely related to trash pickup, Jacobs said.

"It's a lot easier to implement with municipal crews," he said.

Many cities contract out the trash collection and have a centralized trash pick up. In Athens, for example, the city got into the curbside recycling after trash pick up became centralized, Jacobs said.

And, of course, the incentives for residents often do not exist locally because of the policies of trash collection companies. Residents' bills are the same whether they have two bags of trash or seven.

If the cost of trash collection were based on volume rather than a set monthly fee, more residents might support recycling.

As landfills fill up, governmental offices at the state or federal level may be inclined to mandate recycling here.

"But I don't see that happening for five or 10 years," Jacobs said.

Those mandates probably will come, though, because very few new landfills are opened.

"The problem with [new] landfills," Jacob said, "is that they are cost prohibitive."

The permit process necessary to open a new fill may take years.

"You'll end up spending $5 or $6 million," Jacobs said, "before you even open the door."

Curbside recycling, with all of the hurdles associated with it, is not so simple to set up as one might initially believe.

"All of these things may not be impediments," Jacobs said, "but they are challenges. Curbside recycling is possible. But you need a strong commitment from both the public and private sectors."